Plus, in this week’s Installer: a new Steam Deck, the Humane AI Pin, music podcasts, Elon Musk, and way too many writing apps.
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 14, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, you’re my favorite, so happy you’re here, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been traveling a bunch, so I’ve watched Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and most of Rick and Morty. I’ve also been reading about life as an OnlyFans star and the insane growth of WhatsApp, doing some holiday meal planning in Mela, nodding vigorously at how bonkers tipping culture has become, and trying to make a dent in Barack Obama’s very good AI reading list.
I also have for you a rundown of the best tools for managing money, new gadgets from Valve and Humane, way too many writing apps, new stuff from ChatGPT, and much more.
As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into right now? What have you been reading / watching / learning / doing that everyone should know about? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.
The Drop
- The Steam Deck OLED. Valve did a Nintendo! Which is to say, it took its already very good console and made a bunch of things about it — the screen, the fan, the battery life, the processor — a little better. I’m definitely going to end up buying this thing.
- The Humane AI Pin. Every gadget company has been asking the same question for the last few years: “what comes after smartphones?” So far, it’s… smartphones. Humane’s first AI-powered device doesn’t immediately strike me as the next big thing, but I can’t remember the last time I was so excited to actually try a new gadget. Is this the future? Is it anything? Who knows!
- GPTs. You can now create your own ChatGPT with whatever knowledge, character, and style you want, and it only takes like five minutes. I’m much more bullish on these smaller, more specific AI tools than I am the One True AI Machine idea, and I think these are going to be huge. (Also, seriously, kudos to OpenAI for brute-forcing the phrase “generative pre-trained transformer” into the mainstream.)
- Planet Earth III. The first episode of the third entry in the world’s most epic documentary series is out now in the US, and there are a bunch more episodes to come. The drone footage, the natural sound, the things the producers are able to do underwater and in the sky, it’s all just awesome to watch. (Also, stay tuned for some fun Planet Earth stuff coming to The Vergecast soon.)
- Aftermath. A new publication from some great video game reporters who are already off to a strong start covering Zelda, the Steam Deck, Overwatch, and much more. I love a good website, and so far, this is a very good website.
- Final Cut Pro. Every once in a while, Apple likes to remind Final Cut users that it remembers they exist and does in fact care about them. The big winner this time (and this year in general) is the iPad app, which got a bunch of handy keyboard shortcuts, workflow tricks, and a useful voiceover tool.